TidBITS#277/15-May-95
=====================
Tune in this week to find out more about Cyberdog, Apple's
upcoming OpenDoc-based Internet client. We also have information
about a few deals: a way to get Informed Designer for free and a
rebate offer for the Newton MessagePad 120. MailBITS and
articles about Apple's first quad-speed CD-ROM drive, Now
Software taking over DateBook and TouchBase, a Windows version
of Timbuktu Pro, and part III of Tonya's desktop launcher
series round out the issue.
This issue of TidBITS sponsored in part by:
* APS Technologies -- 800/443-4199 --
Makers of hard drives, tape drives, and neat SCSI accessories.
For APS price lists, email:
* Northwest Nexus -- 206/455-3505 -- http://www.halcyon.com/
Providing access to the global Internet.
* Hayden Books, an imprint of Macmillan Computer Publishing
Save 20% on all books via the Web -- http://www.mcp.com/
Win free books! -- http://www.mcp.com/hayden/madness/
* InfoSeek -- Search 200,000 Web pages & 5 weeks of Usenet news
-- http://www.infoseek.com/TBITS/
Copyright 1990-1995 Adam & Tonya Engst. Details at end of issue.
Information: Comments:
---------------------------------------------------------------
Topics:
MailBITS/15-May-95
Apple Reveals Cyberdog
Making Choices: Desktop Launchers, Part III of IV
Reviews/15-May-95
ftp://ftp.tidbits.com/pub/tidbits/issues/1995/TidBITS#277_15-May-95.etx
MailBITS/15-May-95
------------------
**Apple CD600 Quad-Speed CD-ROM** -- In mid-April, Apple announced
plans to make their first quad-speed CD-ROM drives available to
customers in May at about the same price they currently charge for
their double-speed CD-ROM drives ($350 to $450). The new 600e
CD-ROM drive is caddy-less, has an improved seek time, and has a
streaming data transfer rate of 684.4 Kbps, with a burst transfer
rate of 5.1 Mbps (although performance in any given application
can of course vary widely). These specs make the CD600 more than
twice as fast as Apple's current CD-ROM drives, and slightly
faster than most quad-speed drives on the market today. Apple
expects to build the 600e into Macs beginning this summer, with
external and upgrade models also available. [GD]
**Newton News** -- Thinking about buying a Newton? If so, you'll
want to note that between now and through the last day in July,
Apple is offering a $50 rebate on the purchase of a MessagePad
120. Or, you can get a $100 rebate for purchasing a MessagePad 120
along with an "eligible accessory." Eligible accessories include
Apple's Newton Connection Kit version 2.0 for Macintosh or
Windows, an external or PCMCIA fax modem, 2 MB or 4 MB flash
storage cards, the Newton Print Pack, a battery charging station,
a leather zip case, or a Newton enhancement pack.
To receive the rebate, you must send the appropriate coupon, along
with your proof-of-purchase, to the rebate fulfillment center
before 31-Aug-95. Coupons are (or will be soon) available at a
variety of sources, including Apple's FTP site or by calling
800/999-0260 to have the form faxed to you. [TJE]
ftp://ftp.info.apple.com//Apple.Support.Area/Newton.and.StarCore.
Info/MessagePad120.Rebate.Form.US/
**Conflict Catcher 3 Conflict** -- Nathan Ainspan
writes:
There is one problem with Conflict Catcher 3 that has been
recognized and corrected. People with Open Sesame from Charles
River Analytics will find that CC3 will conflict with this
application and cause the computer to either hang or crash. When I
called Casady and Greene's tech support line, we spent about
twenty minutes trying to figure out the problem until the
telephone rep heard that I had Open Sesame on my machine. He
instantly knew what the problem was - the two applications try to
write to or utilize the same bit of the system. A patch is
available from Charles River Analytics. [The patch is available in
Casady & Greene's online forums on the commercial services,
although not their Web page yet. I've uploaded the patch to
Macgifts, so it should appear on the Internet in a few days. -Adam]
**Get Informed** -- If you've ever wanted to try Shana
Corporation's $295 Informed Designer, a application for designing
forms, now's your chance to pick up the package at a minimal cost.
If your modem can handle it, you can download the free 2.5 MB
archive from a variety of online sites, or you can call Shana and
request the package (on a CD) for a $15 shipping fee (more than
$15 if you live outside the U.S.). Informed Designer offers an
array of features for creating paper and onscreen forms, as well
as features that help with filling out forms onscreen. The
application requires a Macintosh with at least 2 MB RAM, System
6.0.7 or later (some features require later versions), and a hard
disk. Shana says they are giving Informed Designer away to
encourage people to learn about form design software and to
generate sales for their add-on products. Shana isn't kidding
about wanting to generate sales - when you launch the downloaded,
freebie version, you get a series of splash screens telling you
about Informed Designer's add-on products. The first screen
reminds you that you must register in order to "suppress this
sales pitch," and if you click the Register Now button, you are
given an 800 number (or a toll number), to call in order to
register. When you register, you won't be charged any money, but
Shana will ask for your contact information and give you a serial
number. Shana Corporation -- 800/386-7244 -- 403/463-3690 --
[TJE]
ftp://mirror.aol.com//pub/info-mac/app/informed-designer-demo.hqx
http://www.shana.com/special/tidbits.html
**More PIMs, Now** -- Late last month, Adobe and Now Software
announced that Now Software would take over the development,
marketing, and support of Adobe's DateBook (for both Mac and
Windows) and TouchBase personal information managers. The
applications, which don't fit with Adobe's product focus, came
originally from Aldus, and before that from After Hours Software.
The move gives Now Software an immediate foothold in the Windows
market, and users can expect an easy migration to Now Software's
future product offerings, such as data and file compatibility with
its more-powerful Now Up-to-Date and Now Contact. Now Software --
503/274-2800 -- 503/274-0670 (fax) -- [ACE]
**Macs Control Windows** -- Last week Farallon announced Timbuktu
Pro for Windows, a program that enables collaboration between
Windows and Macintosh users over local networks or over the
Internet. Timbuktu Pro for Macintosh has been out for over a year
now, and has proven especially popular among folks who run
Macintosh-based Internet servers since it enables them to control
the servers over the Internet. Mixed platform sites might do well
to take a look at Timbuktu Pro for Windows and see how well it
integrates with Macs and various different types of connections.
Farallon -- 510/814-5100 -- 510/814-5020 --
[ACE]
http://www.farallon.com/
Apple Reveals Cyberdog
----------------------
by Adam C. Engst
Two of the more important products revealed at last week's
Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), OpenDoc and Cyberdog, may
find themselves among the most important products in Apple's near
future.
OpenDoc (see TidBITS-256_) is a next-generation model of software
that uses small, reusable components that can be combined in
different ways to create the equivalent of today's programs
(although that's not to say that OpenDoc parts can't be combined
in unique ways). An OpenDoc word processor might combine a spell-
checker part, a search & replace part, and a part that might
generate a continuously updated index. That's relatively cool in
its own right, but let's face it, we've got those capabilities
now. It will be nice to be able to mix and match, but we're not
talking revolutionary yet.
Apple's Cyberdog project, though, could pull OpenDoc into the big
time. Cyberdog is a collection of OpenDoc parts that provide
Internet functionality. So, instead of Netscape or Anarchie, you
could use the equivalent Cyberdog Web or FTP parts. Other Cyberdog
parts planned include Gopher and email (and possibly Usenet news),
along with viewers for common Internet file types like GIF, JPEG,
and various sound formats.
So why did some of the Internet folks we spoke with after WWDC in
San Jose last weekend call Cyberdog "compelling?" I can't remember
who it was precisely who said this, but the term "killer app" was
applied to Cyberdog in relation to OpenDoc as well. Cyberdog
stands out in a number of ways:
* Cyberdog includes a Notebook part that can store URLs for any
Internet service, promising the universal hotlist/bookmark list
that I've wanted for so long.
* Cyberdog can log everything you do, and although that may seem
pointless, I've found logs tremendously useful in the past. Just
last week, someone asked me where they could retrieve the latest
version of ARNS, a utility that can (in theory, I've had trouble
with it) enable someone to connect to an AppleTalk network over
the Internet. I retrieved the file many months ago, but a quick
search in Anarchie's log turned up the FTP site in question (and
before you ask me for that URL, here it is).
ftp://munnari.oz.au/mac/arns_mac/
* Cyberdog is a completely open system, so developers can either
write OpenDoc parts that supplement Cyberdog's parts (I doubt it
will ship with an IRC part, for instance) or replace them.
* You can combine Cyberdog parts within an OpenDoc container
(think of it as a blank generic document) to perform what I call
"ad-hoc publishing." Apple's example is of a teacher creating a
document that combines the full text of a Shakespeare play
(retrieved live from the Internet) along with Gopher links to
other Shakespeare plays and a Usenet news part pointing at a
newsgroup for discussing the play. It's a relatively simple
example, but strikes me as potentially useful integration of the
Internet into education. Sure beats those purple-on-white
mimeographed sheets that fill my grade-school notebooks.
* Once other OpenDoc parts start appearing, it should be trivial
to combine them with the Cyberdog parts to create new, customized
interfaces to both local and Internet information.
These and other Cyberdog features serve to make Cyberdog the best
hope OpenDoc has against Microsoft's heavily pushed OLE (Object
Linking and Embedding) technology. In addition, although Apple now
bundles MacTCP with System 7.5, making Cyberdog readily available,
hopefully as part of the MacOS, could provide Apple with a much-
needed boost in public perception regarding Internet support for
the Mac. Helping this will be Microsoft's recent announcement that
the Internet tools slated for Windows 95 won't ship with Windows
95 itself, but will come on the so-called Internet Jumpstart Kit
that's part of a separate commercial product called the Microsoft
Plus Pack.
Do keep in mind that Cyberdog isn't slated for release until the
beginning of 1996, and its feature set isn't yet complete.
Although Apple's goal is to release fully functional, feature-
competitive parts for Cyberdog, there's no way to know how well
Cyberdog's parts will compete with the versions of popular
Internet programs like Anarchie and NewsWatcher available in 1996,
and there's also no telling how quickly the major Internet
developers will move to OpenDoc, if at all. Also, like current
MacTCP applications, Cyberdog knows nothing about the Internet
connection, and Apple's replacement for MacTCP, Open Transport,
will play a large part in Cyberdog's overall success. Finally, it
remains to be seen what Apple will do about email. Cyberdog is
slated to have an email part that could combine with the rest, but
there are undoubtedly some internal pressures relating to the
misbegotten PowerTalk Mail functionality and to email via eWorld.
A few recommendations to Apple. Get Cyberdog out and make it good.
That's the first step. Consider keeping the name - Cyberdog has
personality and verve, something recent Apple names lack in spades
(look at the recent "Apple Internet Server Solution for the World
Wide Web" - you must be kidding!) Then, let people know about it.
Jean-Louis Gassee (an ex-Apple executive with plenty of
personality and verve) recently suggested to me a few brash
Internet marketing slogans that Apple will never use (but should
still consider):
* At last, the executive-proof Internet...
* You don't have to be Warped to be well-connected...
* Faster than waiting for OS/2 on the PowerPC...
* The gateway, not the Gates way, to Plug & Play Internet...
Finally, and most important, make sure as many people as possible
can get and use Cyberdog. I'm talking about modem bundles, deals
with phone companies offering ISDN services, drop-dead simple
configuration (Cyberdog will support the public domain Internet
Config, which is rapidly gaining acceptance among Internet
developers), and inexpensive Internet connections. Apple must
_not_ hide Cyberdog in custom installation options or require
users to squirrel around in advanced settings dialog boxes to
establish an Internet connection.
I won't make any silly statements about how Cyberdog must succeed
for Apple to survive since $9 billion companies like Apple don't
just disappear. However, the Internet is still wide open, and
Cyberdog could enable the Mac, especially with Apple's strength in
the Internet-savvy education market, to continue to cement its
position as the Internet client platform of choice.
Making Choices: Desktop Launchers, Part III of IV
-------------------------------------------------
by Tonya Engst,
Welcome yet another installment of our series about desktop
launchers. Parts I and II covered DragStrip and Square One, two
commercial desktop launchers. In parts I and II, I said the series
would have three parts, but given the large number of launchers
and the wide range of features that they offer, this series will
continue next week, when I do hope to wrap things up. This and the
next article look at a wide range of launcher utilities with the
goal of pointing out what you can do with a launcher these days,
what applications are available, and how you might choose among
them.
Many of these applications have features that require System 7.5
(or later) or System 7.1.1 with the Drag Manager installed. If you
don't meet that requirement, be prepared to forgo certain
features, particularly those that involve dragging. All the
launchers and patches mentioned (except for Launcher, which comes
from Apple) are available in the /gui directory in any Info-Mac
archive site.
**Launching and Switching** -- Typically, a desktop launcher looks
like a column, row, or grid of tiles, usually enclosed in a
palette, which can be resized and moved about. Tiles are usually
square and about the size of a thumbnail, and the palettes that
enclose the tiles are often called bars or strips. Each tile
represents a application, and sometimes tiles can represent
documents, folders, and more. Desktop launchers typically launch
applications and may help you efficiently switch among launched
applications.
If you have Drag Manager capabilities, you can usually "drag-open"
documents by dragging them onto tiles that represent applications,
thus causing the application to try to open the document as though
you had used the application's Open command.
A desktop launcher is usually an application, and you would
typically place it in the Startup Items folder in the System
Folder, so that the application launches on startup and is always
available unless you quit it. Some desktop launchers are control
panels or extensions. This makes them available at all times, but
can increase the complexity of troubleshooting extension
conflicts.
**Malph** -- Consider Malph 2.3 as an example of a typical desktop
launcher application that helps with launching and switching,
without adding many additional features. Written by Nitin Ganatra,
Malph begins on your Mac as two bars: the first bar shows tiles
for launched applications, and the second bar sports four tiles
for tools that help you use Malph. Using the tools on the tool
bar, you can create new tiles for applications, and those tiles
are added to the first bar (enabling you to quickly launch the
applications related to the tiles). You can also use the tools on
the tool bar to remove tiles that you added to the first bar, hide
a tile on the first bar belonging to a launched application, and
open the parent window of an alias or of an application showing on
the second bar.
Malph shows the active application's tile with a dark outline, and
you can click any tile to switch to or launch its application.
Malph uses a hot spot (a configurable corner of the screen that
you drag your pointer to) for bringing its bars quickly to the
front. Malph bars can be oriented horizontally or vertically,
display large or small tiles, and optionally display the names of
items on the tiles. If you have Drag Manager capabilities, you can
drag-launch documents. Malph has been around for some time now and
is a standard on many desktops. Malph is free, though Nitin would
like Malph users to send him a postcard.
ftp://mirror.aol.com//pub/info-mac/gui/malph-23.hqx
**QuickList** -- Not all desktop launchers take the bar and tile
approach, though most do. QuickList 1.0.1, a $5 shareware program
by Daniel McGloin, takes a window approach. When you launch
QuickList, you get a list window which you can freely resize. If
you wish, you can create additional windows, and any window can
list documents, and folders, and applications, which you add by
dragging or through an Add Item to List dialog box. As you would
expect from a launcher utility, a QuickList window does not hold
actual items, it just shows representations of them. You can open
or launch any item in the list by double-clicking it. Although you
can turn them off, the default settings make it so that when you
double-click an item, the item's QuickList window minimizes to the
size of a large tile and QuickList beeps once. You can also
minimize the a QuickList window by clicking its Zoom box. Maximize
the window by clicking anywhere on the minimized tile. You can
also have QuickList quit when you double-click an item.
QuickList windows do not list all launched applications, but if
you do Option-click a launched application in its list, the
previously active application will be hidden. QuickList does not
support drag-launching documents and has only a few capabilities,
but it's easy to learn, easy to set up, and easy to use.
ftp://mirror.aol.com//pub/info-mac/gui/quick-list-10.hqx
**Documents and Folders** -- Some desktop launchers let you add
documents and folders to tiles, such that you can more quickly
open them, or - in the case of folders - so you can more quickly
look inside the folders or move and copy items into the folders.
**DragThing** -- To better understand how all the common features
mentioned so far might work in a utility, consider DragThing 1.0,
written by James Thomson. DragThing is a solid, easy, elegant
application with two bars: one that shows launched applications
and another where you can set up tiles for documents, folders, and
applications by dragging icons onto empty tiles on the bar. The
bar can be large or small, and have just one row or have many
rows, depending on how you size it. Once you have a document on a
tile, you can click it to open it in its expected application.
Once you have a folder on a tile, you can open the folder, or copy
or move items into the folder. Once you have a application on a
tile, you can click it to launch the application, or drag-launch
documents on the tile. You can also open any tile item's Get Info
window, and open its parent window.
DragThing must be specifically activated if it is beneath a
different window. You can minimize DragThing strips to a one-tile
large strip that sports the name of the strip. DragThing's tiles
can be displayed by small icon, size, or name. Unless you view by
name, files and folders do not show with their names, though most
applications are easily distinguished by their icons. If you use
and like DragThing, James requests that you send him a "cool
thing," of which there is a list in DragThing's ReadMe file.
Postcards don't count.
ftp://mirror.aol.com//pub/info-mac/gui/drag-thing-10.hqx
**Launcher** -- Launcher 2.7, a control panel from Apple that
comes with System 7.5 and various (but not all) earlier systems,
also serves as an example of a desktop launcher, though it has
limited capabilities. Launcher displays items on tiles (called
buttons), surrounded by a colored background, inside a proper
window. You can Command-click the Launcher window to bring up a
menu for changing the size of the buttons. To create a button for
an item, you either drag the item into the window, or add it (or
an alias) to the Launcher Items folder in the System Folder.
Once you make a Launcher button for a application, you can open
documents in that application by drag-launching them on the
button. You can move items into a folder represented on a Launcher
button by dragging them over the button. You can also copy items
by Option-dragging them to a button. To have Launcher open up
while you start your Mac, you turn on a checkbox in the General
Controls control panel.
Launcher does not automatically create tiles for launched
applications, so it doesn't work well as a application switching
tool, though if you do have a tile that represents a launched
application, you can Option-click that tile to switch to its
application and hide the previously active application. Launcher
has very few additional features, and you could achieve similar
results just by making a new folder, called perhaps "My Launcher
Folder," and placing a bunch of documents, folders, and
applications (or aliases) in the folder. The point of Launcher is
to help inexperienced users more easily use the Macintosh, and
though it succeeds at that, after you pass the novice level, you
will almost certainly want to move to something more fully
featured.
**Control Strips** -- Desktop launchers have tiles that represent
icons on your desktop, including - if you wish - icons for control
panels, which you might put on tiles to make it super-quick to
open them. Now, take that idea a step further, and consider a tile
that doesn't open a control panel, but enables you to change the
setting in a control panel, such as the sound level, perhaps with
a miniature pop-up menu. Tiles such as this have been around for
years in various applications, some give you quick access to
control panel functions, others perform a variety of helpful or
fun tasks.
Recently, Apple took this concept and embodied it in a control
panel called Control Strip, which they initially released on the
disks that ship with the 500-series PowerBooks. A Control Strip
strip can be minimized or stretched out, taking up about a small
tile's worth of desktop space when minimized. Control Strip tiles
represent Control Strip modules (which you install in the Control
Strip Modules folder in the System Folder). Each module helps you
do something with your Mac, such as change the sound level, turn
AppleTalk on or off, and put your PowerBook to sleep.
Control Strip modules are reasonably easy to write for programmer
types, and additional modules have turned up here, there, and
everywhere, including in the /gui and /cfg folders in the Info-Mac
archives.
Control Strips caught on quickly, and owners of other PowerBooks
began clamoring for Apple to make Control Strip available to them,
while owners of desktop Macs clamored for a way to run Control
Strip modules as well. Control Strip is now available as part of
System 7.5 or 7.5.1, but it only works on PowerBooks. You can,
however, patch Control Strip to run on desktop Macs, using
ControlStripPatcher, by Robert Mah. Also, DragStrip (the
commercial utility reviewed in Part I of this series) and Desktop
Strip (reviewed here in Part III) can run Control Strip modules.
Additionally, although PowerBar (reviewed next week in Part IV)
does not support Control Strips, it does come with several special
modules of its own, and those modules offer similar capabilities.
ftp://mirror.aol.com//pub/info-mac/gui/control-strip-patcher-20.hqx
**Desktop Strip** -- Petur Petursson's $20 shareware Desktop Strip
1.1.2 is a control panel that supports Control Strips and does a
nice job at helping you switch among launched applications.
Because it is the only shareware-type launcher that currently
supports Control Strips, I'm using it as an example of a typical
one.
I rather like Desktop Strip because it always stays in the
foreground and because its limited rule set makes it easy to
master. Desktop Strip respects your screen space, offering
vertical or horizontal strips that can be shrunk to just a tiny
title bar (though you cannot name the strips - the title bars are
blank) and petite (though not miniature) tiles. Desktop Strip
comes with three modules that - without any supplementation - make
it a useful utility: application menu, a tile/pop-up menu of
launched applications; Monitor Depth, a tile/pop-up menu that
changes your monitor settings; and Program List, a module that
displays a separate tile for each launched application.
Using Program List, you can drag-launch documents. You can switch
to any launched application by clicking its tile (or Option-click
to switch to it and hide the current application, or Option-click
the tile for the current application to hide all other
applications). Command-clicking a tile from any of the three
Desktop Strip modules brings up a short menu of options for
configuring the module. You can temporarily hide the Desktop Strip
palettes and set whether Desktop Strip hides itself when a screen
saver is active.
In terms of common features, Desktop Strip lacks the ability to
hold items on tiles (such as inactive applications, documents, and
folders) - it can only display Control Strip modules and launched
applications. If you find this a fatal flaw, have heart. The next
version should be released with an additional module, called
HandyMan, which lets you put documents, folders, and applications
on a strip. You can also expand the strip out into a grid, where
each row (or column, depending on how you set it up) represents
the contents of specific folder. I've seen a pre-release version
of HandyMan and it fits nicely with Desktop Strip.
If you like the fact that Desktop Strip sits on top of other
windows (a feature that I like enormously, especially since its
easy to shrink the strips down to almost nothing), you may also
want to try HoverBar - it's not as fully featured as Desktop
Strip, but it is the only other launcher that floats on top of
windows, and I plan to discuss it more next week.
ftp://mirror.aol.com//pub/info-mac/gui/desktop-strip-112.hqx
**Choosing a Launcher** -- Choosing a launcher is hard work if you
have to look at them all, so I hope this part of the desktop
launcher series gave you a better idea of the basic possibilities,
and perhaps alerted you to an interesting utility that you hadn't
already tried. The desktop launchers that I mentioned in this part
were those that I felt most cleanly illustrated how a set of
common features might work in a real life application. Next week's
installment will focus on additional desktop launchers that do not
as easily serve as typical examples or that are more fully
featured. Also, thanks to everyone who wrote in plugging their
favorites.
Reviews/15-May-95
-----------------
* MacWEEK -- 08-May-95, Vol. 9, #19
Live Picture 2.0 -- pg. 25
Conflict Catcher 3.0 -- pg. 25
$$
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